Virginia Court Rules Customer Can Post Bad Online Review

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- If you feel like a business did you wrong, your online bad review should stand, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

Virginia resident Jane Perez claims she had problems with Dietz Development LLC and wrote on Yelp and Angie's List that the company stole items from her, among other things.

After the contractor sued Perez for $750,000, alleging that her bad reviews cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, a judge in Fairfax County Circuit Court ordered Perez to edit her comments and forbade her from future posts.

However, the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Citizen stepped in on behalf of Perez and argued successfully before the high court that her free speech rights had been violated under the First Amendment and Virginia law.

The lawsuit against Perez is still pending and the contractor can try to convince a court that her comments were untrue and unwarranted.